Say Snitch
by numbah 1 HPFan
Summary: Ever wonder about what Harry's first word was? With a Marauder as a father, it could have been just about anything; Lily really shouldn't have been that surprised with what came out of her sweet little angel's mouth. One-shot!
1. Chapter 1

Say Snitch

**I disclaim all that is recognized as belonging to JK Rowling. I just write this up for fun, just like how you read this for fun. **

**Ever wonder about what Harry's first word was? With a Marauder as a father, it could have been just about anything; Lily really shouldn't have been that surprised with what came out of her sweet little angel's mouth. **

**Based in my AU, but all you truly need to know is that Keena (Blacktip) is James' foster sister, Sirius' girlfriend and Harry's godmother. **

**Enjoy!**

_James' Point of View: _

"Go on, Harry, say snitch," I encouraged my year-old son as he played with a plush toy version of the aforementioned ball.

Well almost, one year old. It was nearing the end of July, anyway. Lily and I had been stuck in this house for far too long in my opinion. If Harry hadn't been here, I would surely have gone mad by now. As it was, I was only a little bit mad at the moment.

"Come on, Harry, say snitch!"

"Again, Prongs?" I looked up and Harry let out a shriek of delight at the sight of Moony and Blacktip as they came into the living room, the former wiping soot off of his cloak. "I thought you wanted his first word to be 'Quidditch'," Moony continued while my sister rolled her eyes.

"I decided Lily was right," I shrugged. "It's much too long of a word."

"So you decided to go with 'snitch' instead?" Blacktip laughed at me, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. "My poor little godson is going to be so confused!"

She leaned over and scooped Harry up into her arms, spinning the two of them around and laughing as he giggled madly. I rolled my eyes and sat up, rubbing my neck.

"Is Lily still holding out for him to say 'mama' first?" Moony asked as Blacktip finally lowered my son to rest on her hip.

"Yeah," I waved a hand in dismissal. "But I still think he'll say something Quidditch related first."

"You haven't even seen him on a broom yet!" Blacktip laughed, taking a seat on the couch while Moony sat down beside them.

"Don't have to," I argued, grinning at her. "He's a Potter, isn't he?"

Harry let out a stream of babble at this and we all smiled at him.

"Any word from Padfoot?" I asked the two of them.

My sister and my friend exchanged weary looks.

"Nothing," Blacktip said sadly. "But the mission is supposed to be secret after all," she sighed and ran a hand through her dark hair. "I just wish he wasn't going to miss Harry's birthday."

"Just think how mad he'll be if he misses the little Prongling's first word!" Moony added, grinning slightly and nudging Blacktip until she smiled at him.

Harry shrieked out another bit of babble and we looked at him again.

"Come on Harry," Blacktip grinned. "Say snitch," she gave me a look as she said it.

Harry frowned at her and repeated something back in his baby babble.

"Go on, Harry," Moony tried. "Snitch, say snitch, Harry."

More baby babble from my son.

"Where's Lily at, James?" Blacktip asked as Moony continued trying with Harry.

"She upstairs sleeping; Harry stayed awake all night last night and she had the last nappy shift," I answered with a shrug. "Don't know what kept him up, though. He wasn't unhappy."

"Maybe you let him sleep too long yesterday?" Moony offered.

"Maybe," I allowed, leaning forward so that I was eye-level with Harry. "Go on, son, say snitch!"

He giggled at me and waved his plush snitch around in the air.

"That's right, Harry, snitch," I laughed, pointing at the toy. "Can you say snitch?"

"The 's' is probably too hard," Moony said, shaking his head as Harry let out another stream of babble.

"Go on, baby, say snitch," I continued, pointedly ignoring Moony.

More baby babble and then, "Bitch."

I stared at my son in shock.

Moony snorted and Blacktip started giggling, trying to cover her mouth with one hand.

Harry looked around at the three of us and noticed Moony and Blacktip's faces before looking back at me again.

"Bitch!" he crowed.

Moony and Blacktip lost control and now Harry was laughing along with them, screaming the one word he knew loudly, much to their pleasure and my horror.

"No, Harry, no," I moaned, covering my face with my hands.

"Oh, Prongs, Lily is going to kill you," Moony laughed, hardly able to get the words out.

Blacktip could only laugh at my predicament.

"What am I going to tell her?" I asked, glancing behind me at the stairs where I feared my wife would be coming to slaughter me from any moment.

"Maybe he'll stop saying it," Moony suggested weakly.

"Yeah, just like how full moons are going to stop showing up every month," Blacktip laughed.

I sighed in relief when Harry returned to only using his baby babble.

"Maybe she won't notice," I said, feeling my shoulders sag in relief.

"What won't I notice?" I jumped and turned at the sound of my wife's exhausted voice. "Oh, hello Keena, Remus, how are you?"

"Very good," Blacktip grinned, her eyes flicking towards me for a moment. "We heard you had a rough night?"

"Yes, Harry wouldn't be put down for more than twenty minutes at a time," she yawned, stretching her arms out for a moment. She came down the stairs and sat down in the rocking chair next to the fireplace. "How was your night, Keena? Did you and Remus find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, we managed it," she nodded. "So you'll be stuck with me here again until Dumbledore wants something else from me."

I sighed in relief; having my sister around would surely calm Lily's temper at least a little bit. Or at least, she would be able to reverse any hexes that my wife was likely to hand out to me in the very near future.

"What's wrong, James?" Lily narrowed her eyes at me when Blacktip and Moony started snickering again.

"Nothing, oh love of my life, why?" I asked, trying for charm, failing when Harry started baby babbling again.

Lily opened her mouth to reply when suddenly—

"Bitch!"

Blacktip and Moony's snickering cut off abruptly at the look on my wife's face.

Harry started chanting again and with every repetition of the word, Lily's face gained more and more colour.

Moony hastily excused himself, hurrying through the fireplace, and Blacktip carried Harry away up to his nursery, both of them abandoning me to my wife's ever-growing fury.

"JAMES POTTER!"

* * *

Harry's birthday came and went, an explosion of frosting notwithstanding, and August saw the return of my best friend from his mission. He had gotten a little battered from the mission and Dumbledore had thought to give him a bit of time off before starting him on the next one. Course, that didn't let him off from his Auror duties, but that didn't seem to bother Padfoot any. As a result, he came to eat dinner at Godric's Hollow most nights.

I could tell that he and Blacktip had hit another rough patch in their relationship, but I wisely didn't mention this to Lily. Aside from probably already knowing it, she was still angry with me over Harry's first word. He had a few more now, which were, thankfully, much more respectable. I was a bit tweaked when he said 'mama' before 'dada' but Blacktip had only laughed at me when I told her that.

Anyway, the two of them were sitting diagonal from one another tonight. She was across from Harry while he was next to him. Lily sat on Harry's other side and I was opposite her. Dinner was quiet, which meant that Padfoot had had a bad day at work and that none of Lily and Blacktip's experimenting had gone right in the basement had gone right. For me, it meant that Harry had still not said 'snitch'. I sighed and stabbed at my plate, angry that my complaint didn't seem as valid as the other three.

"So, has the Prongsling been talking long?" Padfoot asked, breaking the silence.

"About a month now," Blacktip answered when Lily glared at me and I didn't answer.

"A month? That's before you wrote that letter to me, Lily," he accused, looking at my wife with hurt in his eyes. "You promised you'd tell me the moment he said something!"

She transferred her glare from me to my best friend without a second thought.

Padfoot blinked at her, gulped and then turned to face me.

"Merlin, what did he say?" he muttered, not noticing how Lily's glare was only increasing.

She and I exchanged a glance and I looked down at my plate.

"Well, he didn't say 'snitch', that's for certain."

**Short, sweet, and to the point! I hope you liked it! **

**:-D**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Padfoot's Reaction

**I still disclaim anything famous.**

**Lots of confusion seemed to stem from exactly where Blacktip (who is Keena) came from. As I explained, though obviously not well, this little story came out of my Alternate Universe and she is an original character from that universe. She's James' sister, Harry's godmother and Sirius' on-off girlfriend. She's only mentioned in this chapter, but hopefully that clears it up!**

**Now for the requested Sequel, I decided to just make it chapter two. Enjoy!**

_James' Point of View: _

It was one of those rare times when Lily was downstairs clearing her mind with her Potions work a month and a half after Harry's first word. Since then, he had accumulated quite the little vocabulary. I was upstairs with Harry, which was never rare, and with Padfoot, which was increasingly rare. We were supervising Harry as he zoomed around the room on his toy broomstick while we discussed the war and whether or not I'd ever get my job back as an Auror if the chance arose.

"Mad-Eye was going on about it again the other day," Padfoot said, shaking his head.

"I know, mate, he keeps trying to talk to Dumbledore about it," I nodded. "Did I tell you he's taken my cloak now? To take away any temptation, he says."

"Bloody Merlin, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," he grumbled.

"Watch the language, Padfoot," I said sternly, even though Harry was much more concerned with cornering the cat.

He snorted and looked at me oddly.

"Really, Prongs? You're going to try and pull that on me now?"

"I'm raising a kid, if you hadn't noticed," I replied gruffly. He snorted again. "It's no joke, mate; Harry's talking now! I've got to be careful and that means you do too."

"He's not going to pick anything like that up from me unless I teach it to him," Padfoot waved the idea away. "And I'm saving that for his next birthday."

I groaned and rolled my eyes while Padfoot smirked at me. Just what Harry needed: an instigator.

"You're going to get my son grounded before he can understand what a punishment is!"

"Better than getting him detention before he's at Hogwarts."

"You're a horrible influence."

"I know."

We both turned to stare at Harry for a moment. Suddenly he crashed into the side of the couch when he didn't turn in time. He was about to start crying when Padfoot scooped him up and started 'flying' him around the room. The would-be tears turned miraculously into shrieks of laughter.

"Make yourself dizzy?" I asked when my best friend landed with a thud on the couch, beginning to bounce a happy Harry on his knee.

"I'm not as old as you, Prongs, I don't have a kid yet," his words were light-hearted and his smile was there, but there was sadness in his eyes.

"All in good time, Padfoot," I consoled, hoping I wasn't lying. "And you get to practice on mine first anyway."

"Practice? Harry, did you hear daddy? He thinks Padfoot actually would practice!" he said looking at my son in great surprise.

"Paa-foo no paa-tiss!" Harry crowed and I smiled at him, shaking my head.

"Your kid knows me better than you do, Prongs," Padfoot said after nodding at Harry gravely. I only shrugged in reply. "Bet he's talking more now than you did at that age too. He must get it from me."

"In your dreams, Padfoot," I rolled my eyes. "It's probably from Lily, anyway," I added more seriously.

"Could be Blacktip," he suggested.

"Hard for that to be possible since she came in as a foster kid to my parents at age eleven," I noted, giving him a look.

"I meant she could be rubbing off on him," he rolled his eyes this time. "Since she basically lives here anyway."

I made a noise of agreement in the back of my throat.

"Anyway, who did he take after with his first word? That should tell us plenty, eh?"

My face heated suddenly and I looked away from my best friend.

"Uh oh, was it a naughty word?" I glared at him when he laughed. "Harry, did you say a bad word?"

"Baa?" Harry cocked his head to the side.

"Padfoot, please, we only just got him to st—"

"Bad word, Harry, yes, what did you say?" he carried on, pretending not to hear me.

"No is baa?"

"Yeah," Padfoot replied after a moment of thought. "No is bad, Harry, if you use it wrong. Other bad word, Harry?"

"Please, mate, I'm begging you—"

"Baa?"

"Yes, Harry, bad word?"

"Padfoot, come on, mate, cut it out."

"No?" Harry checked again. I guess it was good he didn't remember any other bad words at the moment.

"What was it you tried to teach him again, Prongs? Snitch, was it?"

"Sirius, this isn't funny anymore," I said, growing alarmed. I had been forbidden to say snitch in the house after what had happened.

"What? All I said was snitch."

"Yeah, that's how it all started last time."

"Because you said snitch? Honestly? Prongs, that's just sad, mate."

"Stop saying it! He'll start using the other one again!" Harry was looking between the two of us, speculation growing on his little face.

"How are you going to raise a grade O seeker if you can't say the word snitch in your own house?" he demanded, the corners of his lips twitching.

"I'll just wait till he's old enough to realize the difference between snitch and—"

"Bitch?"

My face heated up and Padfoot stared at Harry wide-eyed for a moment before he lost it. His barking laugh only encouraged Harry to begin shrieking the word out again. I buried my face in my hands, groaning.

"Padfoot?" I muttered from behind my hands.

"Y-yes?" he stuttered out, continuing to laugh.

"I hate you."

**End scene. Hope you enjoyed it! Happy holidays!**

**:-D **


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